FROM outside our borders, the climate crisis doesn’t look anything like the meteors or space invaders that Todd Stern imagined hurtling toward Earth. It looks, instead, like a long and silent war waged by the rich against the poor. And for that, regardless of what happens in Copenhagen, the poor will continue to demand their rightful reparations. “This is about the rich world taking responsibility for the damage done,” says Ilana Solomon, policy analyst for ActionAid USA, one of the groups recently converted to the cause. “This money belongs to poor communities affected by climate change. It is their compensation.”

The only way to stop global warming is for rich nations to pay for the damage they’ve done - or face the consequences

November 16, 2009 “Rolling Stone”—One last chance to save the world—for months, that’s how the United Nations summit on climate change in Copenhagen, which starts in early December, was being hyped. Officials from 192 countries were finally going to make a deal to keep global temperatures below catastrophic levels. The summit called for “that old comic-book sensibility of uniting in the face of a common danger threatening the Earth,” said Todd Stern, President Obama’s chief envoy on climate issues. “It’s not a meteor or a space invader, but the damage to our planet, to our community, to our children and their children will be just as great.”

That was back in March. Since then, the endless battle over health care reform has robbed much of the president’s momentum on climate change. With Copenhagen now likely to begin before Congress has passed even a weak-ass climate bill co-authored by the coal lobby, U.S. politicians have dropped the superhero metaphors and are scrambling to lower expectations for achieving a serious deal at the climate summit. It’s just one meeting, says U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu, not “the be-all and end-all.”

As faith in government action dwindles, however, climate activists are treating Copenhagen as an opportunity of a different kind. On track to be the largest environmental gathering in history, the summit represents a chance to seize the political terrain back from business-friendly half-measures, such as carbon offsets and emissions trading, and introduce some effective, common-sense proposals—ideas that have less to do with creating complex new markets for pollution and more to do with keeping coal and oil in the ground.

Among the smartest and most promising—not to mention controversial—proposals is “climate debt,” the idea that rich countries should pay reparations to poor countries for the climate crisis. In the world of climate-change activism, this marks a dramatic shift in both tone and content. American environmentalism tends to treat global warming as a force that transcends difference: We all share this fragile blue planet, so we all need to work together to save it. But the coalition of Latin American and African governments making the case for climate debt actually stresses difference, zeroing in on the cruel contrast between those who caused the climate crisis (the developed world) and those who are suffering its worst effects (the developing world). Justin Lin, chief economist at the World Bank, puts the equation bluntly: “About 75 to 80 percent” of the damages caused by global warming “will be suffered by developing countries, although they only contribute about one-third of greenhouse gases.”

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Centre for Research on Globalization. The contents of this article are of sole responsibility of the author(s). The Centre for Research on Globalization will not be responsible or liable for any inaccurate or incorrect statements contained in this article.

Setting aside the morality of building high-tech fortresses to protect ourselves from a crisis we inflicted on the world, those enclaves and resource wars won’t come cheap. And unless we pay our climate debt, and quickly, we may well find ourselves living in a world of climate rage. “Privately, we already hear the simmering resentment of diplomats whose countries bear the costs of our emissions,” Sen. John Kerry observed recently. “I can tell you from my own experience: It is real, and it is prevalent. It’s not hard to see how this could crystallize into a virulent, dangerous, public anti-Americanism. That’s a threat too. Remember: The very places least responsible for climate change—and least equipped to deal with its impacts—will be among the very worst affected.”

However human nature [or really monkey nature] being what it is the reparations, whilst improving the lives of those in the ‘poor’ countries cannot simply got to lining the pockest of a corrupt elite or end up in Swiss Bank accounts.

The mechanisms must ensure that real outcomes appear on the ground, real energy projects instead of empty promises and bigger arms purchases, real forest conservation instead of lip service screening of ongoing logging and to lift the people out of poverty driven by insecurity and a lack of education changes to the delivery of socal services and education.

As Austrlaians all know buckets of money fix very little if applied badly.

Posted by phill PARSONS on 23/11/09 at 04:50 AM

I am concerned that climate rage could rip our world apart and lead to the collapse of what is now a global civilization. Imagine 30 million people trying to get to Australia because of climate disasters in India, China and South East Asia. Climate wars could all too easily slide toward the ultimate nightmare in a nuclear armed world. At the risk of losing everything, I see the need to get on and complete what we have begun as a civilization, or we may not have any chance of ensuring our survival, with a three part plan:

Plan A: Cool the Earth, by reducing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and consider the construction of solar power stations in space that would allow fossil fuels to remain fossils. Also the construction of an adjustable space sunshade at lagrange 1, which will be needed in the future as our star, the Sun, steadily gets warmer, now 25 percent hotter than at the dawn of life 3.5 billion years ago. James Lovelock has warned that because our star is increasing it’s radiation with age, we are at risk of entering a permanently hotter climate on a more desert-like planet. Venus is the ultimate warning of a runaway greenhouse effect.

Plan B: Prepare to build cooler environments for humans, plants and animals to survive in a hotter climate, which may mean living on Earth more as if we were living in space, until we can cool the Earth with an adjustable space sunshade.

Plan C: Ensure human survival by securing a sustainable presence in space, from where we will be in a confident position to work toward a healthier Earthly environment and deliver a healthy and creative life for all Earth’s children. Achieving that would also lead to a more peaceful world. (A sustainable presence in space is when development in space no longer needs resources from Earth, but becomes a major contributor to Earthly wealth and needs.)

This will only happen if individuals in communities around the World work together with a common goal, a shared vision of hope, for survival. If this does not happen, I wonder if our goose may be cooked and we will be Christmas dinner in a greenhouse oven.

Kim Peart

Posted by Kim Peart on 23/11/09 at 10:34 AM

Plan D = Bend over and KYAGS

Posted by Stephan on 23/11/09 at 01:15 PM

If a vendetta against those most responsible for the planet’s destruction ever comes to pass, let’s hope it’s not directed solely against the US establishment as a tidy scapegoat.

The rapacious plutocracies of Tasmania and elsewhere share the same culpability for the disaster. We don’t need to look overseas to find the enemy.

John Hayward

Posted by john hayward on 23/11/09 at 01:34 PM

4: John Hayward

The enemy of the Earth, human survival and the progress of our civilization is within each of us. Only when enough people wake up to the power that they hold to make change by what they think, say and do, can we hope to build a future with a future. That could be expressed as shifting to an ecologically sustainable society living a globally equitable lifestyle, but that idea is also sheer fantasy of itself and is only possible if the progress of Nature and evolution is taken into account, where survival, expansion and diversity are basic. Unless we run with Nature’s expansion, we risk declaring war on Nature and that is a fight we cannot possibly win. So, what is the direction of natural law as expressed through life on Earth? Life has filled the Earth to the brim of the atmosphere and if life could, would expand into space. Doesn’t happen. Didn’t happen, until Nature released a species from some bonds of instinct to develop the technology that would lead to space development and the expansion of life into space. So, is our progress toward space wired into natural law, just like the forming of matter, stars, planets, life and fish finding their way onto land to run around like crazy. If our progress is an intrinsic part of the laws that drive life, then we have become creationists to deny it and turned our grand understanding of the Universe into a creationist myth. We wouldn’t be so silly, would we? So unless we are suicidal lemmings bend on sky-diving into extinction, we will need to run with Nature, or risk becoming road kill on the cosmic highway.

Kim Peart

Posted by Kim Peart on 29/11/09 at 07:30 AM

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